Bitcoin’s price has artificially been driven up by an elaborate fraud involving the cryptocurrency called Tether (among other fraudulent things). As long as this continues, Bitcoin’s value will fluctuate violently as pump and dump schemes are executed.
Tether is a crypto that’s being generated at will by Tether Limited. It’s pegged to the dollar at a 1:1 ratio, which means they’d have to have 1 real dollar in reserve for every Tether in circulation. They claim they do, but it’s glaringly obvious that they’re lying.
The real problem is that Tether is majority owned by Bitfinex, one of the largest crypto exchanges in the world. This is a dangerous conflict of interest. What many people think is happening is this:
- Unbacked cryptocurrency is being created out of thin air by Tether. It’s then transferred to exchanges like Bitfinex, where it’s used to go long on Bitcoin. This fake money is used as collateral for margin trading, greatly amplifying the effect.
- Bitcoin’s price goes up. People are tempted into buying “hot” Bitcoins for FOMO and because “everyone else is going long too”.
- Bitfinex sells you Bitcoin and other crypto for real money, charging you (fat) fees for transactions.
Tether has minted half a billion’s worth of tokens just in the last 3 months. Since the market (still) trusts that they’re worth 1 dollar each, it gives the illusion of liquidity and high demand for cryptocurrencies, especially Bitcoin.
Tether is responsible for the current bitcoin rally, which started back in april when it was worth about $1,000 USD and continued to about $19,000. At the time it started, there were less than 10 million Tethers in circulation, but over the last 8 months they have minted over a billion dollars worth of them. This has pushed the price for bitcoin up at an alarming rate. What is even weirder is that right around the time their supply exploded, all US banks cut them off, which means US customers had no way of wiring money to them when buying Tether tokens. Yeah. They’re a company that issues USD-backed coins by the billions, but can’t bank in the US. Sounds like the perfect place a bunch of serious investors would pour 1 billion dollars into.
The following table is ordered by daily volume:
The suspicion, of course, is that it’s Bitfinex and other exchanges “buying” Tethers. Not real people. Then they throw it into the crypto ecosystem and wash trade with it. When you are buying Bitcoin, you are essentially in an auction where your opponents can bid with fake money. Would you still want to buy if you knew this?
The last of several Tether floods, in december (over 200 million), managed to pump Bitcoin up to over $19,000. My guess is that (aside from their usual scam) they were trying to protect Bitcoin’s price from the new CME futures. However, their printing shenanigans have since stopped being enough to keep up with the bears. Close to Christmas they issued another 100 million that had no effect. Tether was spread way too thin and drawing too much attention. Hence last week’s 30% “market correction”, which was actually whales unloading and cashing in.
I doubt the crypto market can take another hit like this. For now, cryptos will rally again for a few months and reach a market cap of maybe 800 billion at best, and then it’ll become impossible to keep pumping, and the whales will abandon ship, this time for good. They’ll dump Bitcoin in favor of some other crypto. However, this may not be so easy. With transaction queues so long, it’ll be mass panic if the price starts dropping. People won’t be able to get out of their positions until days later.
There’s also the latent risk that Bitfinex gets “hacked”, busted by law enforcement, or becomes insolvent. That would instantly trigger armageddon.
Other factors that have caused Bitcoin to drop, mostly BCH trading in Coinbase. While outside factors may be responsible for smaller dips over smaller timescales, I’m talking about the big 30% “corrections”, the last of which happened last week.
The thing about Tether pumping Bitcoin is that it inflates the entire crypto market. Bitcoin is where margin trading with Tether has concentrated, and since the symptom is apparent exhuberant liquidity, the effect spreads to other cryptos when Bitcoin is traded for other coins.
If they ever lose control during a dump and are forced to shut down trading, it’ll be chaos once people realize they can’t get their cash out. There’s already transaction delays of up to 24–30 hours on Bitcoin trades. The exit door is already very crowded.
If the exchanges start to go, then who knows how low cryptos could fall. This is why the risk in the crypto market is systemic.
Others have said that I’m being too fatalistic, and if all of this unravels, it will not be “armageddon”. Even if Tether is a bubble, they say, it will just be a minor correction if it gets exposed. I disagree. While Tether’s market cap is “only” 1 billion dollars, margin trading and speculation greatly compound its effects. As an example, in 2008 the CDO market was 20x larger than the actual mortgage market. This was because there was a conflict of interest with banks and rating agencies that was exploited and quickly became a massive liability. I see the same thing happening here: an issuer (Tether) is in bed with a seller (Bitfinex) that makes money off of trading inflated assets. And while everyone is making “money”, nobody cares about the quality of the underlying asset. Until they do.
Furthermore, exposing Tether would mean exposing Bitfinex, the largest exchange in the world. This is the real risk. Remember MtGox?
Look at Tether’s volume. Most other coins (including Bitcoin) have a daily volume of about 5–7% of their market cap. Tether has 220%. That means that, on average, every Tether token changes hands more than twice every day. This is unheard of, and makes no sense unless you consider fraud.
Tether is less than 1% the size of Bitcoin by market cap (a “measly” 1.4 billion), but its trading volume is roughly equivalent to 1/6 of Bitcoin’s, 1/3 of Ethereum’s, and more than half of Ripple’s. It’s the 4th most traded coin in the market. This, to me, is evidence of wash trading.
Think again if you believe that such a small coin “can’t possibly influence something as big as Bitcoin”.
We are currently in a 20%+ market dip. Tether’s volume reached 5.5 billion (a staggering 3.5x its market cap), temporarily positioning itself in 3rd place by trading volume.
These are the top 10 most traded Bitcoin pairs:
Out of the first four, three are related to Bitfinex/Tether.
Why are countries banning crypto currencies?
Governments around the world all want to keep in their hands all of the risks and advantages of creating a currency and controlling it. Every government controls the currency through their central bank and that way they know who has it and where it is going. Because of this, People’s Bank of China claimed that cryptocurrencies are perceived as a threat to the entire stability of the financial market. Most countries that are have banned digital currencies in general, also like to have in control the consumer protection and anti-criminal activity that can also be one of the reasons for a cryptocurrency ban. Others are just using soft regulation rules for the sake of new innovative technologies that might make our lives easier. You can find more information about the legality of cryptocurrencies and find a list of countries who do not support cryptocurrencies on this WEBSITE
Cryptocurrencies across the market are plunging because users all around the world fear that trading cryptocurrencies could be banned. The last country that announced a possible ban is South Korea. Officials stated that trading cryptocurrencies could be banned entirely, or at the very least it would be regulated.
This fall affects all cryptocurrencies, not only Bitcoin, which, as the best performing cryptocurrency, has dropped by more than 15%.
South Korea isn’t the first country to ban cryptocurrencies. Last year, countries as Vietnam, China, Bolivia, Ecuador, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Bangladesh and North Korea did the same.
What are the main reasons banks and governments in these countries ban cryptocurrencies?
There are two big groups of reasons – one group of reasons is officially stated by almost every aforementioned country: cryptocurrencies are banned because of security issues. The other group of reasons are usually not stated officially but is largely implied. It is directly associated with cryptocurrencies being decentralized: cryptocurrencies allow people to trade directly with each other (peer to peer), cutting out the need for a middleman, which traditionally is a bank.
Security and protection
Using cryptocurrencies has its dark side. Just a couple of days ago, police in South Korea raided the offices of two of the country’s largest cryptocurrency exchanges on suspicions of tax evasion.
The anonymous nature of cryptocurrencies means that it can be used for illegal transactions - such as buying and selling drugs or weaponry. According to central bank officials, cryptocurrencies can also be used for money laundering or terrorism. The case of NHS this year shows that cryptocurrencies allow hackers to request ransom payments and stay anonymous.
Banks and governments
Banks generally charge fees for doing absolutely anything that includes money, even when they just hold onto it. Banks have created a high level of trust that your transactions will pass smoothly. But, after the financial crisis in 2008, banks lost some of that trust.
Using blockchain as a digital network, where every single transaction (called a block) is securely linked together makes transactions verifiable, available to everyone and is more immune to hacking than centralized banks. This makes banks totally unnecessary for transactions. This is what motivates them to ban cryptocurrencies altogether.
Virtual currencies are self-governed, meaning they are not controlled by any government, person or a central authority. This makes monitoring almost impossible and poses a threat for government authorities (this was especially true for China).
Finally, using cryptocurrencies is posing a threat to the stability of the national currency in some countries (Indonesia).
It is important to stress that banning cryptocurrencies will only create black markets. They can be declared illegal but it will have no effect on the use of cryptocurrencies due to their decentralized nature. To kill cryptocurrencies altogether, all governments from all over the world would have to ban them.
Who owns all the banks of the world?
Sorry, Jay-Z – saying that Jews own all property in America is antisemitic
The rapper’s much-praised track The Story of OJ repeats a racist trope about Jewish people. It can’t just be laughed off as a compliment
A packet of celebratory dreidels to Jay-Z, who released his latest album, 4.44, this week. Aside from one piece in this paper questioning Hova’s feminism (although it seems unlikely that the man who wrote Big Pimpin’ was ever attempting to rival Gloria Steinem for feminist of the year), the reviews have been adulatory. “Genius” is a common verdict, along with praise for the rapper’s emotional intelligence. Quite how emotionally intelligent it is, however, to rely on antisemitic tropes in your songs is an open question.
YEAH, I SAID IT. In the much-praised track The Story of OJ, Jay-Z muses: “You wanna know what’s more important than throwin’ away money in the strip club? / Credit / Ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America? / This is how they did it.” Oh, Jay. If you’re going to wheel out antisemitic economic stereotypes at least make them scan.
Madonna’s manager, Guy Oseary, who is Israeli, has responded to criticisms of the rapper by insisting his friend Jay is the wronged one here. “He’s attempting to use the Jewish people in an exaggerated way to showcase a community of people that are thought to have made wise business decisions,” he wrote on Instagram. Right! Because that never worked out badly for anyone, yeah? After all, Oseary adds: “If you had to pick a community as an example of making wise financial decisions achieving financial freedom who would you choose?” Yeah, come on, fellow Jews – what’s the problem when we ARE all rich and control America? I mean, it’s a stereotype, but it’s also #facts.
LiS considered contacting Oseary for comment but, alas, couldn’t find the phone beneath its massive piles of shekels. So, instead, it wishes much mazel to him and Jay in their endeavours of telling Jews they should be flattered by antisemitic stereotypes. L’chaim!
A packet of celebratory dreidels to Jay-Z, who released his latest album, 4.44, this week. Aside from one piece in this paper questioning Hova’s feminism (although it seems unlikely that the man who wrote Big Pimpin’ was ever attempting to rival Gloria Steinem for feminist of the year), the reviews have been adulatory. “Genius” is a common verdict, along with praise for the rapper’s emotional intelligence. Quite how emotionally intelligent it is, however, to rely on antisemitic tropes in your songs is an open question.
YEAH, I SAID IT. In the much-praised track The Story of OJ, Jay-Z muses: “You wanna know what’s more important than throwin’ away money in the strip club? / Credit / Ever wonder why Jewish people own all the property in America? / This is how they did it.” Oh, Jay. If you’re going to wheel out antisemitic economic stereotypes at least make them scan.
Madonna’s manager, Guy Oseary, who is Israeli, has responded to criticisms of the rapper by insisting his friend Jay is the wronged one here. “He’s attempting to use the Jewish people in an exaggerated way to showcase a community of people that are thought to have made wise business decisions,” he wrote on Instagram. Right! Because that never worked out badly for anyone, yeah? After all, Oseary adds: “If you had to pick a community as an example of making wise financial decisions achieving financial freedom who would you choose?” Yeah, come on, fellow Jews – what’s the problem when we ARE all rich and control America? I mean, it’s a stereotype, but it’s also #facts.
LiS considered contacting Oseary for comment but, alas, couldn’t find the phone beneath its massive piles of shekels. So, instead, it wishes much mazel to him and Jay in their endeavours of telling Jews they should be flattered by antisemitic stereotypes. L’chaim!
Does the Rothschild family control every central bank in the world?
I HAD a friend recently try to explain to me that the Rothschild family secretly own almost every central bank in the world and use their power to influence world events. I know the Bank of England, for instance, was nationalized after World War II, so this sounds to me like another crackpot conspiracy theory. —Jim Moore
A TEXTBOOK crackpot theory, sure, but with a dash of anti-Semitism to liven things up: what your friend has seized on is basically the ur-myth of the whole Jews-control-banking routine. And it’s far from the only slander that’s been heaped upon the house of Rothschild.
They’ve also been linked to that missing Malaysian airliner, the 9/11 attacks, and the sinking of the Titanic—the premise here being that its passengers included Benjamin Guggenheim, Isidor Straus, and John Jacob Astor, three rich guys who opposed the creation of the Federal Reserve and therefore (it’s important not to think too hard on this one) stood in the Rothschilds’ path to world economic domination.
I’ll allow there’s a certain romance associated with the barons Rothschild, who have been nearby for a lot of significant historic events; a familial tendency toward secrecy has perhaps enhanced the mystique. The family business got going in the late 1700s in Frankfurt, where one Mayer Amschel Rothschild progressed from dealing coins and antiques to providing financial services for local powerbrokers, most notably Crown Prince Wilhelm of Hesse-Kassel.
In short order Mayer dispatched his sons to the great cities of Europe—London, Paris, Vienna, Naples—where they set up shop. This being a time of some political upheaval, the Rothschilds found great success lending money to the various governments of Europe, who needed the bread to fund their unending wars with one another.
Which brings us to one pernicious myth about the family: that they made their fortunes speculating on the outcome of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The story, which circulated Europe in an 1846 pamphlet, went that Nathan Rothschild, the son stationed in London, observed the battle’s outcome and rushed back to England to exploit this knowledge on the stock exchange a full 24 hours before news of Napoleon’s defeat reached the British government. It’s a good yarn if you’re trying to paint a picture of an amoral, calculating greedhead, and it made its way into literature and film. Alas: it’s not true. Nathan wasn’t at Waterloo, and he didn’t clean up in the market immediately following. Still, we’d be remiss not to acknowledge that while the Rothschilds weren’t running around Europe acting like anti-Semitic stereotypes made flesh, their burgeoning wealth and influence was no tall tale—that the family actually did provide key funds to the British army and allies in 1814-’15 indicates its ascendant role in European geopolitics at the time. So, I suppose, does another conspiracist claim wherein Nathan financed both sides at Waterloo, coolly playing one off the other.
A further bit of Rothschild apocrypha you may come across is a juicy quote also attributed to Nathan: “I care not what puppet is placed upon the throne of England. . . . The man who controls Britain’s money supply controls the British Empire, and I control the British money supply.” This line appears in none of the major books on the family, and where it does turn up—the most credible venue being a 2004 article in the British journal the Independent—I haven’t yet found it linked to any actual citation. Still, it packs a punch, huh? Exactly the sort of thing you’d expect from a key player in the international Jewish conspiracy.
As to the notion of the Rothschilds owning the central banks, the Anti-Defamation League points out that this Jewish-control-of-the-Fed stuff is pretty much the oldest anti-Semitic story in the book, but one that our modern age of economic anxiety has brought back to the surface—the fact that the international banking system actually is a byzantine mystery that seems to function mostly to make rich jerks richer makes it easy for some to see the nefarious hand of conspiracy behind it. The ADL cites, specifically, the Rothschilds: “In the literature of bigots, the name Rothschild is a trigger for the most explosive of anti-Semitic tremors,” both among your neo-Nazi types and your more extreme Nation of Islam types. Nice to see these guys agree on something.
Where are the Rothschilds today? Now in its seventh generation, their European banking business remains intact. By design, nobody really knows how much the family is worth. As the Financial Times has put it, “The family empire is divided among a web of descendants and a few external shareholders. The ownership structure is opaque, which makes it hard to estimate the family wealth, although it is one of the richest in the world.” That 2004 Independent piece cites “industry insiders” estimating the Rothschild kitty as countable “not in billions but in trillions.” So basically the family continues to do what it’s always done best, which is to make money hand over fist, and that’s probably the long and short of it. Greed’s a pretty ecumenical value.
Astounding as it may appear, selected souls sit in on judgement of their fellow man. This is a master crime
concocted by political gangsters, in brainwashing innocent citizens to do the dirty-work of low-life bastards.
It is common knowledge that court houses are devils lairs, where the excrement of lawyers and judicial parasites wallow in legalized plundering through anti-social dirtbag activities, in humbugging as carried on in civil roguery so-called, as a collective sewage system. God help innocent souls that are legally sucked into any all so-called jury iniquity. Satan has no greater comfort than to enjoy the twelve-victim system, that he he had formerly sat up, in trapping ignorant souls, when sworn into victimized seductiveness as a coma opium covering civil political idolatry. Fools become mesmerised to identify with state police powers.
The National psychiatry industry admits that at least sixty million citizens are actually zombies. The claim is that chemicals in food and water fluoridation has victimized millions, of which are literally ignorant, as to what end is up and have become nihilistic. Within a matter of time, our major republic is being threatened with an inhibited terror that national political whoredom is becoming a well-entrenched nest of confederated fools. Actually, our nation is cursed through the rebellion of the legal syndicate, as criminals are moving into authoritative circles of all states, and suckers on jury call are becoming wise to a nationwide criminal syndicate in the hands of glorified scoundrels. This case can be made when studying WW11, and the Nuremberg judicial claptrap. Further, Waco, Ruby-Ridge, Heavens Gate and David Koresh, the Jim Jones cult. Too, if we throw in 911. Jesus Christ did not face a jury. Christ was tried four times with no jury inclinations. The Sanhedrin that brought Christ down was composed of High Priests. The jury system was criminally installed in our republic after 1776. This was Satans and the bank of England, as allied with Art.6, Sec.6, of the bill of Rights on Treaties.This radicalism was shoved into force after the Constitution was ratified. It is geared to state slavery, for the rotten scoundrels that sucked helpless souls into a life of misery. This was a master crime originating under the wings international finance. The jury system is a master criminal manufacture of Lucifer and and his family of devils. The American productive industry ( citizens ) are sucked-down as legal parasites drain poor and ignorant souls through control of their jury systems. Comatosed is the jurys acclamation.
The National Lawyers Association has a code Never give a sucker an even break, nor a chump another chance These agents of Satan coin that juries are blockheads. Countering this, the suckered juryman thanks God for a chance to judge fellow beings, in mis-comprehending that complete fools uphold absolute compliance of political banditry, in accepting class hoodlism. Christ warned, Beware of lawyers and Doctors of divinity. Socrates warned of being comotosed by the agents of Satan
Twelve chosen blockheads from the lowest depths of social stagnation receive a form implication them into jury duty. Beforehand, an appointed shyster rides herd on obedient incidentals.
This lackey gets off his binge long enough in attempting to to dazzle all meatheads with his line of brilliance, if not Baffle them them a line of Bull-manure. Lawyers primary responsibility is to guard the fraudulent system of stolen wealth, as garnered through commercial, industrial, loan-sharking and the trickery of home taxation. Usually, tax collectors are political-dragging burnt-out ex-drunks, with little experience as Notary Publics, and a shysters dream of stealing.
In proposing that a jury of 12 ingrates have been seated and prepared to exercise revived brain cells previously put to rest via TV brainwashing, a coma moves in. The state rests its case as to the defendant, drunkard, had been shot in the fracas, in attempting to put the make on a barfly. The jury had been hand-picked, composed by a body of farmers, social engineers and firemen. Democratised, pillars of society, Ballot-box ringers, in being qualified to rack up an opinion, as to who fired into a defendants frakas. The state appointed attorney, Oscar Hammerhead, a free-lance drunk, attempted to to explain where and what was a fracas, instead of the entrance of a bullet-hole. After two hours, the jurys eyes became dilated and wobbly.and the the jury falls into a coma. The shyster was surviving on a temporary visa from Hunglo, Poland, and had previously took a six-month crash-course in law. The jury was liberally minded, as beneficiaries of state, in trying to match illegal entries in milking national society in seeking grub by-way of gathering up freebies from the taxpayers hide. Living in some slum-masters professional clapboard rentals and voting for rights was better than sleeping under bridges or park benches. Jury duty was a dead-end as allied with nursing homes.
The jury was queried for two weeks. Back before the judge pronouncing a hung jury verdict.. The fundamental issue was that twelve icons were comatosed. This crew did not know what a fracas was, or is. Questionable intellects had been ignorant as skeletonized as to human pathology. It seemed that such jurors and a shyster would learn more about life in some reform school in attempting understand what was a frakas. The judge happened to be sober, as he too was a quart-day shyster. Calling in professionals in the field of biology, anthropology, pathology, psychiatry and Gypsy fortune tellers a well-rounded combination of court-house interlopers, looking to loot the state treasury in the name of justice. Stepping forth, and under oath an anthropologist of German descent, a frakas lay between the navel and the hip joints. The ( arse ) was never hit. Thousands of dollars of taxpayers money spent on a barfly and a drunk from a shot in the leg, of which completely missed an arse. It is deemed here that America has too many bastards using the art of legal theft in robbing helpless souls, and of which thrive in their own sanctuary of hell on earth. The mentioned shyster did not know his arse from a hole in the ground. Jews are the scourge on this earth.
Financial Trojan Horse infiltrates the
governments, hires their own to take their hidden agenda into the FCC,
FDIC, Treasury, and even the FBI, and further manipulates the stock
market, and war machine. it's costing the working class dearly to
survive in a rigged financo-governmental matrix. Crafted behind closed
doors similar to the Free Masons secrecy. Notice a pattern of events,
and who holds Chairmanship of select governmental agencies with the most
pull.
The COUNTRY is controlled by LAWS,...
LAWS are controlled by POLITICIANS,...
POLITICIANS are controlled by VOTERS,...
VOTERS are controlled by PUBLIC OPINION,...
PUBLIC OPINION is controlled by the MEDIA (News, Hollywood, Internet...) & EDUCATION
So,... whoever controls the MEDIA & EDUCATION, controls the COUNTRY!!"
William J. Federer, 'CHANGE to CHAINS' - The 6,000 Year Quest for Control
** WHO [What 'Family', owns the international-media, the Central Banks of ALL Nations] is at the 'CORE' OF GLOBAL DOMINANCE TODAY?
LAWS are controlled by POLITICIANS,...
POLITICIANS are controlled by VOTERS,...
VOTERS are controlled by PUBLIC OPINION,...
PUBLIC OPINION is controlled by the MEDIA (News, Hollywood, Internet...) & EDUCATION
So,... whoever controls the MEDIA & EDUCATION, controls the COUNTRY!!"
William J. Federer, 'CHANGE to CHAINS' - The 6,000 Year Quest for Control
** WHO [What 'Family', owns the international-media, the Central Banks of ALL Nations] is at the 'CORE' OF GLOBAL DOMINANCE TODAY?
Rothschild empire create an army of so
called intellectual. The author is foot Soldier of that army. Neither he
understands mechanism of working of central bank nor the nexus of
operation among elite. He tried to confuse reader by hiding mechanism of
rising of finance capital and arguing against some superficial talk.
What is important is to understand is at perception level we can get
only half truth because perception is complex of fact, feeling, emotions
and, therefore always biased. Truth always lied at logical level which
revealed through study of mechanism. The author talk only of perception
and no where touch the logical mechanism of rise of finance capital.
This is what all apologist do.
Back to Bitcoin...
I am going to answer a selection of questions going through your mind – EXCEPT for the most important one: whether you should be selling or buying. Sorry I don’t have the answer to that one.
I went to a friend’s party on Saturday 9 December, right before the CBOE futures intro, and I tell my friend Tony, “It looks like a pump and dump to me”.
Pump and dumps are endemic across the crypto space. Bitcoin had become relatively immune to pump and dumps,
where groups of traders would organize themselves via Telegram and
suddenly buy a small cryptocoin. As a crypto starts to rip, it pulls in
other money who loves a pump, and takes on a life of its own. What I
never get my head around is how you can actually cash out of these tiny
coins. But anyways, people do it, many make money, many get burnt.
The futures meant Bitcoin was no longer too big for the dump part. Big investors, sometimes referred to as whales, could push up the price in the illiquid crypto market and then cash out quickly via the futures.
And lo and behold, CBOE kicks off…and nothing. Bitcoin goes up.
I was in small, and I’d already cashed out enough to make sure my wife wouldn’t throttle me, so I moved some Ether into Bitcoin.
The reason I thought it looked like a pump and dump was that the Bitcoin chart was getting closer and closer to vertical.
When a price line goes vertical, that cannot go on forever. It kinda
has to stop. The only argument between hyperbitcoinizationers and
everybody else was where it was gonna stop, $20k or $200k?
When something goes vertical, or more precisely parabolic,
it has to keep going. People often think that something that is over
extended can only get cheaper by going down. Actually you can also work
off over valuation by moving sidewards. Once you go parabolic, that is no longer possible.
What does this actually mean?
I follow @PeterLBrandt
on Twitter. He called the top, and in homage I’m going to “borrow” some
of his charts. The continuation of this line meant a $50k price by the
end of January.
Image: Peter Brandt
This is him prepping his followers to the bearish technical signals.
Image: Peter Brandt
The S-H-S is approximately a head and shoulders formation.
It’s a small rise and sell off, followed by a large rise and sell off,
followed by a small rise and sell off. This action defines the height of
the head (the all-time high in price), the shoulder and most
importantly the neckline – the place where three sell offs have got to.
To quote Mr Brandt, a head and shoulders formation is a process by which strong hands (in from much lower) distribute their ownership to weak hands (late comers). And once the neckline is breached, the only way is down.
Technical analysis (reading charts) is a really limited source of info. Fundamentals will always trump technical,
but what is going on is technicals sometimes give away fundamentals.
Some big sellers had absorbed all the buying momentum of the up move and
when a rocket stops halfway out of the atmosphere, it kinda has to come
back down.
Another way to think of technicals is with coinbase inadvertently giving away the addition of Bitcoin Cash to that platform. People act on this info early so it turns up in the price.
The
other big flaw in technical analysis is you can always draw your lines
differently. Mr Brandt is balanced enough to even do this for us!
Image: Peter Brandt - this chart says buy either at $12k or $6.4k.
One aspect of the sell off is the way momentum investors work. They buy things because it is going up. Value guys buy things because they’re cheap. So when it stops going up the momentum guys sell and the value guys…they’re not interested till 75% down.
One thing that’s a bit tough about blaming Bitcoin Cash or big manipulators is they have successfully broken the momentum, the thrill of magic money. That doesn’t get fixed quickly.
I’d been kinda watching the topping action, and not really believing. Was I really just early with my call…Was the bigger CME futures intro the dump?
This
actually makes sense in hindsight. CBOE are number one in options. The
only other futures they are big in are VIX…which is a future on options.
CME are the King of futures.
Part of the reason I was disbelieving was because altcoins kept going up. Here’s a boxy little diagram I just did in Excel.
Image: Everything down = liquidity coming out
Whenever I saw Bitcoin down, I saw some sh/tty altcoin go up. That is not a bear market
– there was still liquidity in the market. People were not fleeing
crypto, they were rebalancing their assets. Unfortunately, that quickly
became no longer the case. Yesterday, everything went down.
So where are we now?
I make the case here that Bitcoin is a tech IPO masquerading as a currency.
The good news is that the car wash tokens are getting worked down.
Image: Bitfinex’ed
But then this is happening too.
Image: ProudMoulie
He sold out in the end. This guy deserves love, because no one deserves this. He bet the house on a lottery ticket and all he got was $30k more debt.
I stick to my line, crypto is not dead,
but the chances are high that prices are going to keep going down for a
while. HODL’ers can keep their logic of this time is different - yep you really do never know. There’s even a good medium term story why it should be higher in a year.
Image: I’m hoping that fail to load doesn’t mean SuperMugatu has deleted this tweet
BTW, I’m sticking up for Charlie Lee. Sure he sold at the high, but the whole way up he told people to calm down, this revolution is going to take a long time.
Image: Charlie Lee
Good luck everyone. I’m in small with house money and I’m probably going to hold that.
